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American Passage

Vincent J. Cannato’s Amer­i­can Passage: The History of Ellis Island aims to cover the whole recorded his­tory of the island. The book starts with the his­tory of the island long before any­one thought of it as a way sta­tion for immigrants.

The Dutch named in Little Oyster Island, as it sat among the oys­ter beds near the Jersey shore. He notes that the own­er­ship of the island is unclear between the late 17th cen­tury and 1785, when an adver­tise­ment appeared try­ing to sell the island along with a cou­ple of lots in Manhattan and “a few bar­rels of excel­lent shad and her­rings…” (Kindle loca­tion, 482).

By the time of the War of 1812, the island had been acquired by the War Department as part of the defense of New York harbor.

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